Reviews

Not a classic, but the film does have its sublime visual moments and William H. Clothier deserved his Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography. This widescreen, 70mm film must be seen in letterbox to be appreciated. AMC recently screened a letterboxed version during their film preservation weekend salute to Ford, and watching it was a revelation. Some of the images from Monument Valley were truly astonishing. Coming on the heels of Lawrence of Arabia, released the year before, Cheyenne Autumn suffers by comparison (what film wouldn't?). However, it provides an intriguing introduction to seven film's Ford made in Monument Valley. Watch the others, particularly She Wore A Yellow Ribbon (1949) and The Searchers (1956), and try to make the case that these films did not have a profound influence on David Lean's vision for Lawrence.

I first caught the tail end of this John Ford masterpiece on AMC during Black History month, and couldn't wait for it to pop up on the schedule again so I could see the whole thing. I couldn't believe I had never heard of this film before, and after I did some research and discovered how reviewers in 1960 had dismissed it, I understood why. They went expecting To Kill A Mockingbird and got Breaker Morant instead. Ford was WAY ahead of his time with this one. Woody Strode, who plays the title character, helped break the color barrier in professional football years before Jackie Robinson did so in baseball. And he broke some huge barriers in this film, too. Every young black man -- heck, every young American male today -- should be required to watch this film. As Strode later said, Ford and script writers "put classic words in my mouth." Words that would be echoed three years later by Dr. Martin Luther King in his immortal "I Have A Dream" speech at the Lincoln memorial.